Girl's Night
by Nianai Bell Nezumi
Summary: A little dinner never hurt anyone. Well, except this one when you get the female NEXT out for food and fun. Time for some team bonding. Friendship fic for our three favorite elemental NEXTs.


Girl's night always turned out to be a disaster.

It didn't matter where they went, or what they did, but as long as the three of them met up something always went horribly wrong. Unfortunately that never deterred the three from hanging out every Saturday night. This week was no exception.

The three sat at a little café that Ivan had found a while back when he went on his journey to find every decent place to eat in Sternbuild. Most of the blond's taste had been questionable at best but it turned out that The Petite Eclair had actually been the best establishment Ivan had stumbled upon. It was a quaint little place, with outside wrought iron chairs and tables pushed underneath cute teal and white umbrella's. The sidewalk was made of bricks that wrapped around tiny infant trees that were strung with twinkling pale blue lights. Actually the glowing lights mimicked the blue glow of their NEXT powers almost perfectly and maybe that was why the entire atmosphere was so calming. Like they were surrounded and accepted here.

Pao-lin felt slightly out of place at the fancy café. She tugged at her shorts nervously and tried to convince herself she was completely comfortable in frilly tank top, white shorts and the fancy sandals Nathan had picked out for her. Her foot tapped absently with the saxophone music beating from the discreetly place speakers.

But she had little time to feel truly self-conscious before Karina sighed for the fifth time in the past three minutes. The singer was playing with her green tea idly, eyes unfocused, thoughts obviously not on her present company. Pao-lin wished she could understand what the older girl was going through, that way she could at least comfort the teenager with some credibility. But the younger girl had never been in love before, and Pao-lin didn't honestly feel the need to commit to a relationship when she had wonderful co-workers who kept her far happier than any romance could.

Karina didn't see life like that at all. She was a hopeless romantic at heart, as much as she tried to deny it. The one-sided love was like something straight out of one of those girly movies that sometimes snuck their way into their girl's night.

"Cheer up sweetie. Just because some overgrown tiger isn't into you, doesn't mean that their aren't _plenty_ of fine alley cats who would love to get their paws on a date with you." Nathan supplied with a wink in what Pao-lin supposed was a sagely of the three of them Nathan had the most experience here and Pao-lin would be hard pressed to not agree with the man on anything in the love department. Although Karina had fought the idea of calling their 'Girl's night' that, because someone wasn't actually of the opposite sex (Karina had finally convinced Pao-lin that she was referring to _Nathan_ and not the little lightning user), the name had worked better than 'a night out with two ladies and their feminine man friend' and it stuck.

Karina flicked her eyes up to the oldest hero with a slight pout on her glossed lips. Pao-lin mentally sighed, was Karina always going to doll herself up? It felt like so much work and honestly the idol was pretty even without the layers of makeup.

"How can you say that Nathan? The guy I lov- _like_. Haha I meant _like,_ sees me as his daughter! How embarrassing is that?" Karina dramatically dropped her head onto her folded arms with an exasperated groan. The other two members of their group exchange pointed looks over the blonde.

Pao-lin awkwardly patted her back while Nathan brushed the girl's hair with a large glittery hand.

Nathan tilted his head, one manicured hot pink nail tapping at his lip. "Well, you're right sweetie. I don't know what it's like to be treated as a daughter of my man, but listen-." Karina lifted her head enough to watch the man through skeptical eyes.

"You're young and you have plenty of time to explore your options, Karina. Look at all the fine young things out and about tonight. I'm sure one of them is bound to be drooling over here right now." Nathan smiled in a motherly fashion at the pouting girl. Karina shook her head in disagreement but she at least sat up enough to swallow down more of her tea.

Pao-lin interjected, nervous at her lack of knowledge on the subject but still the same proud tone to her voice that lead people to just trust her. "Nathan's right Karina! Mr. Tiger is a great guy but why can't somebody else make you just as happy, or even happier than he can. I mean have you ever seen how Mr. Tiger and Mr. Barnaby act around each other? I'm sure you can find someone who will love you just like that." And it was true, Pao-lin hadn't ever seen anyone look happier to be with someone than when Kotetsu and Barnaby were around each other.

Karina leaned back heavily against her chair, lips downturned in a distinctive frown, "Don't remind me."

Nathan tsked at the singer reproachfully, "Now, now Karina. Pao-lin's right. You can't pine over someone who is so obviously enamored with someone else! Besides you're not the only one in love with those two"

The two girls turned dramatically to their love guru and practically screeched. They had always thought Nathan's playful flirting had been just that-teasing. Not actual feelings for the other hero's. Nathan waved his hands in a shooing manner before one hand went to clasp at his chest, "Oh how I mourn the loss of those perfect butts on those two. Now I'll just have to settle for Antonio!"

A beat of silence passed before the girls erupted in laughter at Nathan's flair of drama. The conversation moved on from love troubles to things like shopping, television, questions about Pao-lin's aversion to 'cute' and finally their meal came out piping hot and the trio dug into their food excitedly.

Pao-lin slurped up the last of her noodles loudly just as Karina and Nathan sighed blissfully.

The three were fully satisfied and nothing had gone wrong in their night which meant tonight had been a victory for a Girl's Night. Pao-lin grinned happily at how well the evening had gone, even thankful for the fact their call bands hadn't sounded for the night.

"Mhh, little Ivan was right about this place wasn't he? Good food, good atmosphere now all I need is a good dessert to go with it!" Nathan announced happily. He was rubbing his stomach while Karina promptly picked up the dessert menu and thumbed through the laminated pages eagerly.

"Let's do it! Forget dieting tonight, we deserve this when we save the city on a daily basis."

Poa-lin perked up and began listing what sounded good. Nathan watched the two girls happily pick through their dessert options.

After the waiter had taken their dessert order (a red blush dusting his face after seeing Karina's smile), Pao-lin had excused herself to go to the restroom, her hands were messy after all the pasta she'd consumed and pasta with chocolate cookie cake just didn't sound appetizing at all.

A few feet from the door however sat three rather rough looking guys, dressed in drab colored coats with chains hanging from many different parts of their bodies. They sneered as Pao-lin walked by and she simply frowned and pushed her way into the bathroom.

Unfortunately, as stated earlier, trouble tended to follow the heroes of Sternbuild around like a disease.

When Pao-lin exited the bathroom she hardly noted that the table was free of the unsavory characters that had stared her down on her way over. Instead the bruisers blocked her way to rejoining her friends. The hallway was narrowed and pretty well blocked off, cutting the only visible way out of here. Pao-lin slumped unhappily, she always knew that her night couldn't go well. And she didn't want to bother Karina or Nathan. If she could just quickly use a spark to scare these men off…

The apparent leader of the group sauntered over to hover above Pao-lin, having a good two feet over the young girl. Pao-lin wrinkled her nose in disgust at how truly awful the guy smelled. The guy smirked down at the girl, intentions clearly written on his face. "Well, now what is a nice little girl doing back here without her mummy and daddy?"

Pao-lin smirked right back, ignoring the other two laughing behind their ring leader. "I don't need my mom and dad to hold my hand where ever I go, but obviously you guys don't know how to stay out of trouble so maybe you need _your_ parents to hold your hand." Her smiled widened when she saw the guy's eye twitch agitatedly. He took another step closer into Pao-lin's space, trying to menace her with his size.

"What did you say brat?" He growled by Pao-lin's ear.

Making sure the thugs didn't realize what she was doing, Pao-lin raised her fist slowly, willing the lighting into her fist. Her manager always told her to act like a lady in public and to not use her powers unless absolutely necessary, but Pao-lin figured this was perfectly necessary. She'd apologize to her friends and manager later but right now these thugs needed some sense beaten into them.

But two very familiar voices stopped Pao-lin in the middle of her plan.

"Hey you thug, what do you think you're doing to our friend?"

Karina and Nathan stood perfectly calm, a unconscious thug in each of their hands. The heroes dropped the heavy men at their feet, making sure to step on them as they walked over to Pao-lin and her assailant.

Pao-lin smiled at the rescue party and Karina jerked a finger at the thug, "You want me to beat him up for you Pao-lin?"

Shaking her green hair excitedly the girl smirked, letting go of the lightning in her fist so she her hands were that of a normal girl's. "Nah, no thanks Karina. I got this."

The thug still hadn't gotten the hint and he muttered, "What the heck? You think just cause some frilly friends of yours showed up you can just leave?"

Pao-lin smiled sadly at the guy, ignorant up to the end. And she sent her fist flying straight into the guy's nose. He went down with in seconds with a gargled shout. Dusting off her hands Pao-lin hopped over the guy, rejoining her friends. "So is our food here?"

Nathan put his hand atop the small girl's head smilingly, "It sure is dear. We were just curious what was taking you so long. Wouldn't want all your ice cream to melt now would we?"

Pao-lin shook her head, glad she had two wonderful girlfriends to back her up.

***omake***

As the trio left the little café, Pao-lin watched as their waiter winked at Karina, who in turned went beet red. Nathan chuckled as Pao-lin tugged onto older girl's skirt. She pointed oh-so subtly back to the sandy blond haired waiter and whispered rather loudly, "_Do_ _you like him_, Karina?" Large green eyes blinked seriously at the singer and Karina's cheeks erupted into flames. Nathan flipped a hand out wisely saying, "C'est amour!"

Karina tugged her knitted cap over her eyes quickly and tried to not think about the little scrap of paper with the waiter's phone number scrawled on it.

Next Girl's Night they were spending the night at Nathan's and watching a horror movie.

* * *

A/N: I've been dying to get something not related to my multi-chapter fics out. And I love these three as a team. Thus this story was born. Warnings~none, I don't own and enjoy everyone!


End file.
